Verse 4 The promise of his coming, that is, the coming of Christ.--Since the fathers, &c. Their argument was, that the course of nature had gone on steadily the same from the days of the fathers, and that it still continued without any indication of an approaching change. To this the apostle replies in the 2 Peter 3:4-13, that the course of nature had not always gone on unchanged,--that the earth has once been destroyed by water, and he asserts that it will be again destroyed by fire.